The
summer I was going into eighth grade, I helped my younger sister
paint her room. She had developed a fascination with
surfing, though we lived in southwest, Ohio. Aqua blue
paint coated over her childhood sage walls and blanketed on top
of the border of dancing ballerina bears that wore tutus and
waved wands. The bears had been cut out of wrapping paper
by my mother, attempting to make use of her practical resources.
They were placed mid wall so that they danced clear around the
four corners of her corner bedroom in our two-story home. The
four walls that were once decorated with my mother’s taste
were now being brushed and slathered with wave colors, the far
left wall striped and edged with tangerine tango, gecko green,
pomegranate pink and stark white to help offset the bold stripes.

Instead
of dancing bears, posters of surfers taking on 30 ft waves hung
in their place. Instead of the frilly tutus and wands, “surfer
girl crossing” and a large yellow sign that read “Pray
for surf,” was arranged over her bed. Tiki lights,
skin boards, palm tree figures, and a blocks of colorful letters
poised on her dresser that spelled R-E-L-A-X. My sister had
a vibrant eye for color. I remember standing there with globs of
blue paint clinging to my brush as I admired her taste. I
secretly wished I had the same boldness to change my soft
lavender walls to something as equally electric.

After
the final touches, we laid on her hot pink sheets, overwhelmed
with the magnificence of color that surrounded us. I noticed the
dabs of blue on the rich brown woodwork that had seeped through
our hurried tape job as we were eager to get started.
Smudges of pink that tickled the ceiling and lavished green all
over our arms and legs that lingered after a paint war. But what
I hadn’t noticed that day, which took me years to notice,
was the faint outline of covered up ballerina bears. Their
outlines still danced around the four walls of her room,
reminding me of what used to be underneath the surface.

Rarely
in the years that followed had I layed on her bed again like that
day when our job was done and examined the work we did; after a
while the new became common and ordinary. Sure I was
in there often, to visit, share stories and laughs, to borrow
clothes to wear out with friends, and as we grew older-to borrow
halter tops and cute dresses to wear out on dates. I was in
there frequently to take back my clothes she left on her floor;
being the same size had its perks and down sides. I often
joked that the hurricane from the surf blew in and caused the
crazy torrent of a mess she called a room. Organization was
not her strong point like mine and I found myself even cleaning
her room for her on occasion as if the space were mine-
frustratingly emptying the trash, separating whites and colors
into two hampers, organizing papers into piles, and discarding
expired coupons that filled empty shopping bags unnecessarily
kept in the corner.

When
my brother moved out for college, her room and bed became a
closet and she drifted out into the sea to sleep in his bed at
nights. It wasn’t long before we floated our separate
directions too- friends, parties, and drinking entangled her like
seaweed and the bond we once shared didn’t seem to break
past the glassy surface. Instead of writing songs and
playing school together, she attended football games and Euchre
parties. Instead roller skating around our unfinished basement
she played beer pong, went clubbing. No longer was I
removing makeup smudges or coffee drips from my clothes, but I
was scrubbing out beer and spiced rum. When my parents told her
she couldn’t go out, she did it anyway, fighting all the
way out the door. I remember when the door shut- my dad
sat on the living room couch, TV going on mute, staring hard at
the thread on the carpet, disappointment billowed in his brown
eyes . My mom came up the stairs and into my room,
furiously venting about the differences in parenting styles.
I listened with only one ear as I folded clothes-the thoughts
frustrated me. She wore down my parents until their
efforts to barricade her in became useless and they stilled from
standing between her and the door or hiding her car keys, my mom
faded out to the living room couch alongside my father, neither
of them with answers.

For
some reason, I never had the words to tell her how much I hated
what she was doing, how much I missed her. When I left for
college, her partying grew like the tide. I remember
the call I got from my mom one Fall Friday night. The law had
finally caught up with her underage drinking. She and a
friend were taken to jail right in the middle her high school
football game in our small town. At trial later that
month, the judged ruled that if she were ever caught drinking
under age again, she would automatically be penalized with 6
months of jail time, no re-trial.

Though
she met with a probation officer once a month, it did not seem to
rearrange her social itinerary. This caused my
parents force to pick up like the winds before a storm as she
continued to go to parties. And once again my mom and dad were
offsetting plans she had made, even calling her friends to tell
them to stop bothering her. None of it held steady and
before long, my parents found themselves lost out at sea in the
same boat from years earlier. My dad got a call from a police
officer. “Your daughter was driving and I pulled her over,
she has a 30 pack of beer, she says it’s yours. Is this
true?”

“Yes,”
my dad replies, “yes, it’s mine.”

On
my weekend home for college, I lay in my bed; she came in my room
to borrow a pair of sweatpants. “Don’t you get hot in
those?” I couldn’t imagine sleeping in long pants all
night.

“Not
really.” She slipped on the black fitted sweats and
looked at her reflection in my pink full length mirror. I watched
her roll the bottom of the pants up on each leg.

“Want
to sleep with me?” I asked as she turned to lean down and
hug me good night.

“Really!?”

Her
response surprised me- and for a moment I felt regret, that her
drifting was my fault, that if I would have just spent more time
with her, things would be different.

“Yea
with Mr. snuggles.” I laughed and pulled forward the yellow
teddy bear she had bought for me as a make-up present in Jr. High
after a fight we had.

“Ok,
let me make a phone call!”She said

I
could hear her voice on the end of the line
downstairs-frustrated, unable to convince. Naturally, I had
assumed she was getting dressed to sleep in my brother’s
room that night, but I could hear how she had made plans to watch
a movie with a friend, probably spend the night somewhere
adrift. I should have realized she was going somewhere,
this was the time of night she usually went out anyway, her
makeup was fresh, and her long, black hair was down and
straightened. I remember how I darkened it for her the month
before, covering up her brown roots, so that it was as dark as
mine.

I
could tell the phone call had ended, she walked up the stairs and
halfway to my room, she paused mid hall and her body was tilted
toward the stairs ready to leave again, “sorry, I have to
go,” she with slight hesitation.

Then
she left.

I
lay awake; I wonder if one day she’ll wash up on the shore
of what she use to be and we'll go back to some sweet version of
the past or if she will keep treading where she is. My
sleeping dreams part me from my everyday world, but in the
morning, nothing has changed, and she has still not come home
yet. I find myself not asking questions, not visiting her
facebook profile, not cleaning her room for fear of what I'll
find. Last month she used my eye shadow brush and left it
in her makeup case in her purse. When I needed it back, instead
of rummaging through her purse to get it, I left it there and
used my finger-blending the gold into the corner of my eye with
my pinky.

Somehow,
if I don’t know what’s dancing underneath her
surface, it’s as if it doesn't exist. I ignore
what she keeps faintly seen. Rarely do I let my hands graze
over the walls of her life and accidentally feel the ridges of
what is hidden underneath her surface. My chosen
naiveté cradles me in its boat, rocking me to
sleep at night as I drift into the nostalgia of my once world.

Michelle
Mostaed
has been previously published in SNReview. She is a recent
graduate of Cedarville University in Southwest, Ohio with a
Bachelors degree in Comprehensive Communications and minor in
Creative Writing. Though she is currently in Real Estate, she
writes in her free time and her future plans include studying
creative writing and receiving her MFA so she may pursue teaching
at the collegiate level.
.